"Only three. Villarobledo, of course; a seven-month-old baby; and the widowed mother of the lad, Gabriel. She died two nights ago."
"Not so bad," commented Quesada hopefully.
"No; but we got fully twenty sick, all stages. I must get these drugs up to them. They're suffering pitifully. On the way I can show you a bit of what we have done, and tell you the rest."
He indicated the open stone bed of the old Moorish flume, as they followed it up the uneven street.
"Notice how clear the water is? That comes from our nitration system. Up above, at the top of the village, we deepened the channel in one spot. We put a layer of large stones on the bottom of the pit, above that a stratum of pebbles, and on top of all, a coating of fine sand. The water, seeping through those straining layers, is purged of all foreign substances, thoroughly purified."
The bandolero nodded his comprehension. They made on.
"Morales and his men have proved as good as their word. With their hands, they cleaned the scum from every inch of that stone flume. Manuel himself is simply fine, a prince!" Carson added with that touch of familiarity which denotes the warmest appreciation.
"Then we made two cut-offs from the flume," he continued. "One supplies that box-channel near the houses to expedite the carrying-off of sewage. The other is in the nature of a floodgate leading into a hole, deep as your neck." He smiled faintly. "Many's the time I've made a sluice of this order, when I was mining for gold out in California, but never before for this particular purpose."
"And what purpose is that?"
"Well, when somebody goes cold and collapsed from the cholera, we lift the floodgate and let the water flow into the hole. Meanwhile, we heat a bunch of stones in the coals of a fire. We throw the stones into the water and then, when the bath is at the proper temperature, we lower the patient gently into it. Hot baths usually give relief. In the case of Gabriel's mother, they helped to prolong her life. After the bath, we massage the limbs thoroughly to circulate the blood and take out the kinks of the cramps."